Love Bites
by MyLookOfDenial
Summary: We were never perfect. But it’s the flaws that make us who we are. I never pretended to be anything but terribly flawed. As the war raged around us there was no time for perfection.


**LOVE BITES**

We were never perfect. But it's the flaws that make us who we are. I never pretended to be anything but terribly flawed. As the war raged around us there was no time for perfection. I gave in and stopped always being perfect little Hermione Granger. Because at the end of the day perfect was an unnecessary expense of desperately needed time. As long as it was 'good enough', it didn't matter, _perfect_ just stopped mattering after a while.

I needed him and that was that. It wasn't talked about or shouted to the world. It was a quiet and desperate kind of affair. We never pretended to be anything we were not, we didn't whisper sweet nothing's into each others ears late at night. Because when war has taken those you love from you there is no time for sweet nothings and whispered words.

It was all wild frenzy and lust filled sex. All release and desperation to feel. And that primal need to have out bodies connected in the most intimate of ways. It was whispered confessions to a dark room. I needed him and he needed me. Maybe it was all about sex and desire but I still _needed_ him. I think it was him that kept me going when they found Ginny's body. It was him that made me strong enough to comfort Harry as he mourned for his one true love and he made me strong enough to comfort Ron who lost his little sister. Harry and Ron didn't think to comfort me because I've always been the strong one and utterly unshakeable. But it was Draco whose arms I lay in that night, wrapped in his embrace, the dark mark on his left forearm pressed against my bare back.

I didn't cry and he didn't tell me it was '_going to be okay'_ we just lay together after we had had sex, panting and breathing heavily as we lay squished and entwined in his single bed. He didn't insult me by trying to comfort me and I knew he felt some kind of loss because he was on our side and that was enough to make him at least a bit sad. I didn't insult him by asking if he was _okay? _because he didn't need that.

I never cried to Draco and he never cried to me. In fact I think I cried all the tears I had for poor Molly Weasley, that was night the war truly began for me. After that I didn't cry. I felt like I wanted to sometimes, but I think I knew that if I started I would never stop, the damn would break and my tears would drown the world.

I think Ron knew. [Or maybe he didn't, I was never so sure]. But I think that Ron had some kind of clue that I was finding comfort in someone's arms. And those arms were not his or Harry's. I know Ron saw that love bite on my neck that had nothing to do with love but everything to do with lust. He eyed it speculatively and I didn't try to hide it and insult his intelligence. He said nothing of it and looked back up at me and asked me to explain exactly how we were going to attack the Ministry of Magic that the Death Eaters had taken to using as a kind of home base.

My innocence was corrupted in that war. I learnt dark spells and taught the others them too. It was Draco and I together; he already knew a lot of dark spells as dark magic had surrounded him since childhood. I devoured book after book on dark magic or got him to teach me spells. And then we taught the others. We went out there and fought their dark magic with equally dark magic. We killed and tortured for knowledge because war does that to you. In the end we were as bad as each other.

Snape came to us with Draco one night. We glared at him and didn't trust him, some never did, but he changed sides. He and Snape were our spies until Severus Snape got careless, that carelessness cost him his life. Draco swore to me that he would never slip up like that. He would never be like Snape. I think he said it to me that night more to comfort himself than me, but I was there.

He was our spy, he was good at what he did, and he got up high in the ranks of Voldemort's Death Eaters. Everyone knows that in war you must have spies and infiltrators. It was part of the plan. And Draco would come back to the house warily and spill all the knowledge he knew. He had a room right at the top of 12 Grimmauld Place. I used to share a room with Ginny. The empty bed on the other side of the room got too much one night so I took to sleeping in Draco's room even when he was not there. He told me once that he liked knowing when he got back that I would be waiting for him.

He didn't say it because he loved me or because I loved him. He said it and he felt that way, because it was nice to know someone cared. I don't think you can have sex with someone and not care on some level. I wanted him to live and I would be waiting in his room for him when he was at 12 Grimmauld Place. I think he liked to know someone was waiting for him.

Looking back now it doesn't seem like it was just sex. Like we always said it was. Maybe it was always slightly more. He was my first. I gave him my virginity and from then on we just carried on. We were in the living room of 12 Grimmauld Place. We were up far too late for anyone else to be around. We were going through spells and plans as we sat side by side on the sofa. I don't know if I kissed him or if he kissed me first. But we were leaning towards each other and our lips met. I lost my virginity on that uncomfortable sofa in that little room.

It went from the there, sometime I would go to his room late at night and he would welcome me into his bed, or we would often be up late in the living room of that dusty house and would end up paying a visit to that uncomfortable sofa. Ginny slept in Harry's room a lot and Ron moved out of Harry's room into his own room. Ron understood that Ginny and Harry only seemed to only have limited time together. He was hot headed and protective of his sister but he knew that Harry would never hurt her. So sometimes when Draco knew Ginny wouldn't be there he would pay my room a visit late at night.

Ginny knew, and that was okay because she never said anything of it, I don't think it bothered her. We never really talked about it, but I think she understood I needed someone. Maybe she would have preferred it was Ron but I think she knew that I needed someone to hold me at night. Sometimes I wonder if Ron was lonely while the war was raging around us, Harry had Ginny and I had Draco. Well Harry and Ginny only had one another for a far too short a time. But Ron still had no one. Then I remember that he was strong and I don't think he really needed anyone.

Even so Draco and I talked sometimes, in the dead of night he told me the horrors of the things he had to do. Just because keeping it all bottled up was too much. I was the only one from the Order who would listen to him and I don't think he would have wanted to tell anyone other than me. We trusted one another.

Sometimes in the dead of night with darkness as my shield I told him things I never dared to tell another. I told him of my guilt for killing and my wish to have never opened that damn letter. That fateful letter that I got when I was 11 years old, carried by that tawny owl with scruffy feathers and with _the_ letter tied to its leg. I told him how I wished I had never opened it and never knew of this world, maybe then it would have ceased to exist and there would have been no war or killing. It was a warped sense of reasoning but he understood. He told me he missed his mother, he told me that he even missed the man his father used to be, before Voldemort and dark magic completely took over.

He asked me why I wasn't crying the night Ginny died. I told him if I started I would never stop. I asked him what he thought would happen after the war. He said he doubted he'd live that long. He asked me the same question and I told him I was living for today and never for tomorrow. I took the world one day at a time when the war was all around us. He told me I was very wise. I told him I was far too wise for an 18 year old girl. He said he was far too evil for an 18 year old boy. I told him that he had evened it out by becoming a spy for the _good side_. He said that the blood would never be washed from his hands.

I said no more when he said that. There was nothing more to say.

I understood and he understood. I needed him and he needed me.

Harry knew: He rapped three times on Draco's door one morning and there was nothing I could do but pull the covers up to my chest to hide my naked body as I sat up in the bed. There was nothing Draco could do but throw me a worried look before sitting up and awaiting our fate. And when Harry walked in and looked at us. Sitting up side by side in bed, painfully and obviously naked. Love bites that had nothing to do with love and everything to do with lust, scattered sparingly across Draco's chest and neck. He knew.

I remember Harry standing stock still in that door way as he stared at us, I looked down and didn't meet his eyes. Draco's right hand took my left under the covers and gave it a small squeeze. _'Malfoy I need to talk with you about the attack for tomorrow and Tonks is looking for you Hermione.' _He said it neutrally, no sense of anger in his voice, or any kind of emotion for that matter. I looked up and smiled at him a little before he walked out closing the door. All his expressive emerald eyes showed was shock and a hint of confusion. I agreed with him, I was nearly as confused and as shocked as him about my relationship with Draco Malfoy.

So I changed and found Tonks and Draco planned the attack for the next day as if nothing had happened. Maybe Harry told Ron or maybe Ron told him of the love bites on my neck that had nothing to do with love and everything to do with lust. Or maybe Ron had already told Harry. But I'm pretty sure they both knew. Maybe the whole Order knew, but I couldn't care less, it was my own business whom I slept with.

A few days after Harry walked in on us I walked into my room. The one I once shared with Ginny Weasley. I rarely used it, [too many painful memories] but I wanted to look to see if I had left my watch in there. I liked to know the time at all times. Harry was sitting on Ginny's bed, staring straight ahead. He looked up at me and met my eyes, I sat down beside him and took his hand in my own.

'_What's the world coming to, you sleeping with Malfoy and you-know-who gaining power?' _He asked after a short while of silence, the name Voldemort was taboo at that time. He didn't say it vindictively, I remember sighing and shrugging and telling him I didn't know. _'That worries me even more. Hermione, the know-it-all not knowing.' _He said chuckling nostalgically but with a hint of sadness, he was probably remembering my hand waving, desperate-to-answer-a-question antics at Hogwarts. And I laughed, because it was that or cry and I knew I couldn't cry. _'How long?' _He asked, I shrugged and told him it had been a while. _'He better treat you good.' _He whispered and I heard his voice crack a little, because war does that to you, I wanted to tell him it wasn't like that, it was just sex and lust, but I just told him not to worry, he treated me fine. _'I always worry, you know that Hermione.' _He said and I nodded and told him he needn't worry about me, I could look after myself.

The silence wasn't uncomfortable, it was just a silence between old friends who had been through one hell of a lot together and didn't need words to just be in one another's company. I held his hand in my own as we sat side by side in the room that seemed to hold Ginny's ghost. I whispered to the quiet room that I missed her a lot too. Because I felt like he needed it. He nodded beside me and I said nothing as he blinked back his tears. _'I've really got to win now Hermione, her death can't be for nothing.' _He said and I nodded, agreeing, _'I won't let her have left me for nothing.' _He said just above a whisper, I told him that she hadn't died for nothing.

'_You won't leave me will you Mione?' _He asked after a time of silence and I chuckled and told him that I would never leave him, I told him I had been with him through it all and would stay with him always. I told him that Ron and I were his best friends and would never leave him to face you-know-who alone. We were called down for dinner and the seriousness of the talk in that room were left behind as we walked into the kitchen, hand in hand.

I didn't look for my watch again. I decided that the time was the least of my worries.

I let Ron sob forlornly onto my shoulder as we sat in the living room. Draco was there too, we all were, but Ron didn't care, he didn't care for pride at that point. His father had been taken from us too. Dead and gone. I stroked his head and let him cry as Harry sat on my other side. I only knew that he was fighting his own inner battle because he gripped my hand so tightly. I said nothing and let Ron cry. And I let Harry hold my hand so tightly it hurt, because they needed me.

I found solace in Draco's arms that night. I didn't cry because I knew that if I shed one tear the rest would surely follow. We didn't speak that night. Not in any understandable language anyway. We spoke the language of pleasure and desire and lust for only us to hear.

And then we were fighting the final battle and we didn't even know it at the time because we had fought so many battles and the final one seemed so very far away that we didn't even dare to hope that it could possible be _The Final Battle. _I was 19 years old. Far too young for war, but I was there nevertheless, with my old school friends around me. All too young to be fighting and killing.

We fought the black cloaked monsters. And I didn't believe in God. [Too many terrible things had happened and my belief in an omnipotent and omniscient God was no more]. But I prayed to whatever was out there, even if there was nothing, I still prayed that I could come out of it alive. But I prayed that Draco would too, because I needed him and he needed me. Even if it was just for sex, he needed to live, because whenever I _tried_ to imagine a tomorrow; he was there.

I fought the masked and battled with fervour and strength I had not known I possessed. Maybe in my heart, somehow I knew that it was _The Final Battle _and I needed to fight my hardest. I was duelling with someone I didn't know as my comrades and enemies fought and fell around me. I knew it wasn't Draco, I had seen him earlier in the battle, I had seen his mask on many occasions before. I recognised his body even in robes. And no other Death Eaters possessed the same arctic grey-blue eyes as him.

I knew the Death Eater I fought was a man; the voice was far too low to be a female and his deep voice was harsh as I jumped away from his well aimed curse, just avoiding it but I still fell to the hard ground. _'Avada,' _I awaited the second word, which would bring with it my death, but a different killing curse hit him and he fell to the ground, and the second word was never uttered. I leapt up looking around to thank my saviour. It was Draco and the Death Eaters around him turned, raising their wands at him. I sent my own killing curses at the Death Eaters who had raised their wands. He pulled off his mask and slipped off his cloak, dropping them to the floor before beginning to battle his old comrades.

We didn't stray far from one another and we fought in unison. I think that was a sign we were nearing the end, because now that he had shown himself as a traitor we would have no more information from our spy. He saved my life, and put his life at risk. The Death Eaters were desperate to kill him because he was a traitor. I caught Ron's eye as I fought with Draco he glanced at me as he fought his own battle, he took in Malfoy beside me and showed no sign of shock or confusion. He nodded as if it made sense to him that Draco would be fighting with me. Then he turned back to Bellatrix Lestrange, fighting the killer of his dear departed sister. Trying to get his revenge as Harry fought Voldemort.

We won the war. We paid a price. We paid a great price. We lost many but we were eventually victorious.

I didn't know what to do after the war, I had no purpose. On the first night we celebrated that the war was over, of course there were still Death Eaters out there but Voldemort was dead and Harry had saved us all. We drank firewhiskey and laughed, I sat next to Draco and surprisingly as Draco went to get us more drinks I saw Ron pat him on the back. The two former enemies shook hands and Harry went over and the three men talked by the drinks as I watched on. And I wished Ginny could be there, because she would have never believed that her hot headed brother would ever talk companionably to Draco, or that Harry would either.

He came back with my drink and Ron sat on the other side of me as he, Harry and Draco discussed quidditch. It was common ground for them. And I was shocked and surprised but also unbelievably happy. Old rivalries had finally been set to rest. And late in the night when I said I was going to bed, Draco said he was tired too. Harry and Ron wished us goodnight but said nothing else. I walked up the staircase with Draco, and into the room that I thought of as my own.

And just like all the other nights we lay together in the darkness of our room and he told me that he hadn't expected to live this long. I agreed and I told him that now the war was over I didn't know what to do with myself. He said he didn't either. I told him that I still couldn't think of tomorrow properly, I could only think of today. He said he'd like it very much if I was in his tomorrow. I said I would quite like that too. Then I said that in fact I would very much like it if he stuck around for all my today's and tomorrow's. He said he couldn't imagine ever being anywhere else.

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**Hmmm another random one.  
But I liked it. I hope you do too. =D  
Let me know what you think...  
So please review.**

**MyLookOfDenial. =D X**


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